Criminal defense attorneys have long objected to “experts” produced at trials by the Justice Department who often seem to closely follow trial theories rather than scientific or forensic data. I have handled cases where experts used by the Justice Department gave almost laughable testimony filled with errors in national security cases but courts continue to admit their testimony. This week, one such expert, FBI Special Agent Steven Kimball, fell apart on the stand when confronted with clearly conclusions over basic and easily ascertainable facts.
Tsarnaev’s defence attorney Miriam Conrad for example noted that the FBI identified a picture sent on the twitter account of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a picture of Mecca. This led to this exchange:
Conrad: “You said the picture [that forms the background of the second account] was a picture of Mecca.”
Kimbell: “Yes, to the best of my knowledge.”
Conrad: “Did you bother to look at a picture of Mecca?”
Kimbell: “No.”
Conrad: “Would it surprise you to learn that it is a picture of Grozny?”
Unfortunately, he might not be surprised at all given the loose standards imposed on such expert testimony.
Kimball was also forced to admit that highly incriminating tweets isolated by the Justice Department were actually quotes from pop songs, including a tweet referring to “I shall die young.” Kimball said that he was unaware that these were quotes from songs. Kimball admitted that he did not even click on some links in tweets cited by the government as incriminating. One of the links would have taken the reader to a song with the line “I shall die young.”
Kimball was also confronted by the fact that the FBI had isolated lines that were actually jokes form Comedy Central and various comedians. One could of course forgive an FBI agent for having a limited knowledge of humor sites. However, Kimball also misidentified a quote as having been made by the al Qaida-affiliated cleric Anwar al-Awlaki when it was really a quote from the Qu’ran.
Among the other examples was the highly incriminating use of the term “mad cooked” in tweets that was raised by Kimball. Kimball admitted on cross examination that he was entirely ignorant of the fact that this slang means “high” after he tried to guess that it might mean “Crazy.”
In the end, it was the testimony that seemed cooked. It was a great cross examination by Conrad, but it is unfortunately not unique.
The exaggeration of such evidence reflects the real issue at trial — death. The defense has already admitted that Tsarnaev carried out the attack. The issue is only the penalty and whether a single juror can be convinced that Tsarnaev was under the influence of his older, more radical brother. The misrepresentation of this evidence was intended to portray Tsarnaev as a dedicated terrorist and extremist like his brother. Instead, it seriously undermined the credibility of the prosecution before the jury in what was an extremely strong case for the death penalty.
Source: Guardian
Nice choice, Pogo.
Winston Churchill was a well known bigot. You should hear him on Indians. He fits right into your camp.
Winston Churchill on Islam:
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.“
@Chinggis Khan
“Chinggis figure out why genocidal trolls not taste good. Too much bile. Need to get bile ducks in a row. Then feed caviar to duck so get roe in a duck. Can’t destroy Mecca. Need Mecca Wish Foundation.”
LOL and down on the floorboards! Thanks, Chinggis, I really needed that. 🙂
I suggest Zyprexa.
“He is a modern Jacobin. He wants to purge the modern world through fire and death”
You have an interesting fantasy life.
“condemning to death in large numbers”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
I gather you think then that we are not at war.
OK.
Yet Islamic jihadis say they are at war with us.
What is your response?
@Pogo
You quote a fragment of what I wrote, namely “ ‘condemning to death in large numbers’, and say, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
I was referring to what you had *advocated.* Your wanting to condemn to death Muslims in large numbers is not exactly a trenchant argument for making war on them, but merely expresses your personal desire to see them dead in large numbers.
“I gather you think then that we are not at war. OK.”
What you should gather is that I’m fully aware of the authoritarian and/or fearful bloodlust of many people who *want* to be in an agon of monumental proportions, frightened little souls who want the US military machine to kill people for them, rather than their wanting to remand individual terrorists to the criminal justice system, as I and others do.
A good book on the fear- and warmongering in the US vis a vis terrorism is sociologist John Meuller’s *Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them*
From a review:
“This is an interesting, valuable and important book, and I’m fairly sure almost no-one has or, for that matter will, read it. I will do what I can to change that.
“John Mueller is from a venerable but sadly rare tradition of academic commentators: the skeptics. It’s that perspective he lends to our ‘troubled times’ and over this course of this tidily executed, thoroughly sourced and entertaining book, Mueller systematically demolishes much of the public hype which holds us up in airport terminals, eats up our tax dollars, and does its level best to prevent us sleeping soundly in our beds.
“He makes, and repeats, a point which many otherwise perfectly sensible and well-informed commentators can’t fathom: The biggest source of terror in our lives is not terrorists in Afghan caves, but our own politicians and media pundits constantly blathering about them. The terrorists themselves cause sporadic but, in fact, very limited mayhem.
“The thousands of hungry mouths who comprise the ‘terrorism industry’ on the other hand – the politicians, civil servants, defense contractors, security analysts and media commentators – each of whom is primarily interested in justifying his own existence or convincing us to open our wallets – each has a vested interest in persuading us we should be soiling rather than sleeping in our beds. Their statements, therefore, we should take with a pinch of salt.
But even though we all know we ought to, we don’t. We acquiesce: we put up with speculative, unsourced, unattributed, and frequently credulous nonsense – we tolerate queues and being unneccessarily fondled at airports, hikes in tax rates, and restrictions on our civil liberties. John Mueller’s book sets out to provide us a reality check and ask, pointedly, why we are so easily prepared to do that.
“By way of preface Mueller lists a series of items which ought to be – but aren’t – conventional wisdom. They’re all very big points, among them:
* Terrorism just doesn’t do much damage considered in any reasonable context (nine times as many Americans are struck by lightning in the average year as are killed by terrorists)
* Even where Terrorism has horrendous results, it tends to be one-off events (despite six years of anxiety, there has not been another terrorist attack in the U.S. *at all*, let alone one on the scale of 9/11)
* Catastrophic events are by their nature are hard to repeat (never again will a plane full of unsuspecting passengers sit and allow unarmed men to fly them to their deaths without intervening, since the assumption ‘We’ll be used as hostages so we’re safe for now’ no longer holds)
* Terrorist actions tend to be counterproductive on almost every level any way: far from throwing New York into chaos, panic and Hobbesian brutality, the direct and immediate result of 9/11 was the sudden blossoming of compassion, cooperation and cohesion in the city on a completely unprecedented scale – a place not usually known for its neighborliness or Samaritan spirit
* The cost (both human and economic terms) of the ‘War on Terror’ has been far greater than the cost of Terrorist actions themselves (even taking into account the financial losses sustained in the capital markets)
* The ‘War on Terror’, being as it is a war on an idea [or tactic], is utterly unwinnable. There is no practical way of eradicating the possibility of individuals, for whatever reason, engaging in entirely destructive acts of violence. Like road fatalities (of which there are tens of thousands each year in the US) the risk of terrorist attacks are a fact of life in built up areas which we should take reasonable, dispassionate, measures to minimize, bearing in mind the opportunity costs of doing so.
“Mueller doesn’t take an (overtly) political position – his arguments are not based on views about foreign policy nor the moral rights and wrongs of the situation, but an statistical analysis of the costs and risks of the terrorist threat, and acknowledgment of the personal agendas which inevitably inform those who shout loudest. ‘If it bleeds it leads’- people don’t buy newspapers to read good news, so in a competitive market it is no surprise if newspapers tend to dwell on worst-case scenarios. Yes, terrorism is dreadful, Mueller says, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep it in perspective.
“In short, this book is a long overdue and much needed dose of common sense.”
“Yet Islamic jihadis say they are at war with us. What is your response?”
In the first place, your saying that over and over and over doesn’t make it so, and in the second place even if some mouth-breathers tell me they’re at war with me, *that* doesn’t make it so, either. It takes at least two sides to engage in war, or organized homicide.Can you at least provide a few quotations with attribution to support your glittering generalization?
In the second place, you’ve got a greater chance of being struck by lightning than you do of being harmed by an Arab terrorist. see *Overblown*, above.
P:”Thank you for your considered response.
“1) Actual terrorists …should be dealt with like any other criminals in the world”
P: I disagree. They’re part of a global jihadi movement, and as such are at war with the West (and others). Criminalization hasn’t reduced their activities in the EU a whit.”
You’ll need to support these assertions with some evidence, Pogo. Your war fever alone doesn’t cut it.
“2) Western governments should quit creating Islamic terrorists “
P:This robs them of a lack of agency, and treats them as sub-humans incapable of responding except in a barbaric fashion because they don’t know any better.
More ‘white man’s burden’ stuff.”
I can’t tell if this statement is disingenuous or just plain stupid.Were all the young Americans who went running to their military recruitment offices after 9/11 “sub-humans with a lack of agency” when they were responding to what they thought was an attack on their country? Was your own response to 9/11 sub-human and lacking in agency? How many Americans do you know who blew it off and just said, Oh, those crazy Arabs. What’ll they think of next?
Why should Muslims whose countries are bombed, invaded, and occupied feel any different about than Americans?
P: More, some of the jihadis were born and raised In the EU and were nor more subject to colonialism, etc. than I was.”
A lot of Muslims have been radicalized otherwise than by colonialism, Pogo. I take it you either didn’t read what Professor Pape and Michael Scheuer had to say about this, or you just blew them off because their evidence regarding jihadi motivation too much undermined your warmongering.
P: “Zionist oppression of the Palestinian people”
“The Arabs don’t give two shakes about the Palestinians except as fodder for their anti-Israeli animus. They can’t even get into Jordan or Egypt.
Sorry, I don’t buy it.”
Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that this is too much of an emotional stretch for you to get your mind around.
Let me conclude by asking you this: how do you feel about the 22+ US veterans who commit suicide every day after participating in your glorious war of civilizations, Pogo? And I’m not going to let you blow this one off.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/21/us/22-veteran-suicides-a-day/index.html
@Inga (Annie)
Feeding the genocidal troll is a waste of time. Let him go ruminate on his ostensible superiority over “leftists” and fantasize on how he will murder millons of Muslims whle telling the rest of us we are not being ‘civil’. Don’t bother pointing out that there is nothing conservative in what he says. He won’t listen, and he won’t engage in good faith.
He is a modern Jacobin. He wants to purge the modern world through fire and death, and Edmund Burke is spinning in his grave to hear this kind of insanity defended as “conservatism”. It is nothing of the sort.
More namecalling, lacking a persuasive argument.
Again.
No Pogo. Face up to your comments advocating execution and genocide of Muslims. I guess it’s surprised you that others bedsides a couple of us have called you on it today. Pogo, you hate the left. Anyone who has read you for any length of time already knows this. You hate Muslims, that is also obvious. I believe you also made racist and misogynistic comments since you’ve been commenting here. You must be a really good representative of your conservative bretheren. They’re probably quite proud of you.
Inga – making up stuff does not mean the War on Women has started again. Back up your claims. You have not made an argument, just claims that you have failed to support.
Face up to illogic?
Not tough, just disappointment with the left.
Again.
@ Dust Bunny Queen
“The other view is that these are acts of war from an organization that has verbally declared that they are at war with the West and detailed how they wan (sic) to destroy us all. War. not criminal actions but War.”
Can you clarify what you mean by “these acts” and “an organization” and provide some quotations to support your assertion that “they want to destroy us all”?
I’m also interested in who it is “they” are.
Thanks.
So make your argument about Mecca, then, and how to address Islamic jihad.
@Pogo Hears a Who
“So make your argument about Mecca, then, and how to address Islamic jihad.”
I thought this was at least implicitly obvious from previous posts I’ve written here, but let me spell it out and flesh it out:
1) Actual terrorists, as opposed to those blamed for false-flag attacks, should be dealt with like any other criminals in the world, by the national and international criminal justice systems, not executed on the spot as you barbarously averred Tsarnaev should have been, based on your unilateral determination of his unequivocal guilt.
2) Western governments should quit creating Islamic terrorists with their own geo-political machinations. See former CIA bin Laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer’s *Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism*, among other expositions regarding Muslims’ understandable resentment of having their countries bombed, invaded, and occupied, as well as ruled by ruthless dictators supported by the West:
“In addition to explaining a great deal of the history of the war against these specific Islamic terrorist groups, this book [Imperial Hubris] makes the profound point of stating that until we Americans realize the real reasons why we are hated, we will never win. The author talks at length about the fact that radical Islamic extremists are attacking us for WHAT WE DO, not because of what we are and how we think. The author, truly an inside expert, emphasizes how our deceptive leadership constantly try to convince the public that we are hated because of our freedoms and liberties. This, he says, is a lie and a dangerous one to perpetuate.
“They hate us for what we do – for our arrogant and hostile and deadly foreign policies that impose our military and economic might on those with less power. The author describes the growing animosity Islamic radicals have towards all things Western, and how the war on terror we are waging does little to make our enemies hate us less. Again, we are just fueling a fire that will one day make 9-11 look like a minor brush fire. He takes us into the ‘enemy camp,’ so to speak, to teach us how the other side views us, a priceless perspective for anyone who truly wants to understand the minds of these terrorists.”
http://www.curledup.com/imperial.htm
Also:
“After 9/11, the University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape compiled a database of all the suicide terrorist attacks committed worldwide from 1980 to 2000—187 in total. Pape then analyzed his material, the most comprehensive collection of suicide terrorism ever assembled. His findings are illuminating. Rather than poverty, or a hatred of freedom or other Western values, or even Islamist fundamentalism—as the popular theories claimed—Pape found that the primary motive of suicide terrorists is the desire to compel democratic countries to abandon their occupations of foreign lands.
“Pape published his findings in the *American Political Science Review* in 2003, and the accompanying article became one of the most widely discussed pieces of political science of the decade. He expanded the piece into a book, *Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism*, which was nominated for the Council on Foreign Relations’ prestigious Arthur Ross Book Award and covered by CNN, the Washington Post, the American Conservative, Fox News, and NPR.”
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/big-boom-robert-pape-remakes-terrorism-studies
3) The USG must get serious about addressing the gaping and festering wound of the Zionist oppression of the Palestinian people, an issue that increasing numbers of non-Muslims see as being the genesis of a great portion of Muslim animus toward the West.
I hope this clarifies at least somewhat my counter-position to your terribly misguided warmongering.
It’s tough to face up to it Pogo, huh?
Tu quoque, Inga.
Geez, does no one from the left have an argument that isn’t a logical fallacy or a conclusory statement?
My kingdom for an intelligent leftist!
Pogo, this isn’t the first time you’ve advocated “Turning Mecca into glass”, IIRC.
Fighting a defensive war is not genocide.
You already know that, but lacking other arguments mockery of something I never said (actually you said it) will do.
Weak response. Try again.
You’ve done a lot of typing, but have not once addressed the argument at hand (i.e., we are at war).
Here, I’ll start it for you:
I disagree, because…
Pogo, before you repeat your “Inga’s 8 Ball” insults again, I suggest you review the civility rules yourself first, before telling others to.
So, civility is all about advocating genocide?
So it would seem. Call for industrial scale religious mass murder, but act offended when you are mocked for it.
My irony meter is broken.
No Max, civility would include not Alinskying by stating an argument I never made (genocide).
You’re acting reprehensibly here.
I suggest you find a 1.5 hour video in response.
So, civility is all about advocating genocide?
Ken Rogers
I have a simple bumper sticker that reads:
WAR IS TERRORISM.
“This is what Pogo argues in favor of, whether he actually realizes it or not.”
Rather than argue against what I actually stated, you prop up another straw man.
And then cut and paste your favorite passage from your thesis, against an argument I never made.
I find it telling -and passing strange- that you tar a conservative with the examples of authoritarian horror chosen all stem from leftism: the French Revolution, fascism, Nazis. Similar calls to destroy all who oppose the State came from Stalin and Mao.
Inga throws her two cents into the Alinsky smear.
I suggest you both read Prof. Turley’s Civility Rule.
Or not.
Keep on straw manning.